THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
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- October 9: Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke issues the same "smoking gun as mushroom cloud" warning previously used by Bush, Rice, and other administration officials. (Laura Flanders)
- October 9: In a secure video conference, General Tommy Franks, the chief war planner under Donald Rumsfeld, assures General James Marks, the chief of military intelligence for the planned invasion, that he, Bush, and the war cabinet are still focused on planning for the upcoming operation. Franks says that questions still remain about the plan; Bush's senior advisors are worried that Saddam Hussein will hunker down in what they term "Fortress Baghdad," leading to prolonged, high-casualty urban warfare. Franks then tells Marks that the other top priority -- finding Iraq's WMDs -- is his baby. Marks, as noted in the above items, has had to start virtually from scratch, using old, unreliable intelligence and with little help from the disinterested civilians at the DIA. He chooses Colonel Steve Rotkoff as his deputy; Rotkoff is a senior military intelligence officer with an unusual style and reputation. He is a Jewish intellectual, bookish and irreverent, given to writing impromptu haiku about his current operations, but is tough and smart enough to get the job done, no matter whose toes he has to trod upon. Rotkoff begins a daily war journal, which he later shares with reporter Bob Woodward. One of his earliest entries, a haiku, reads:
- Rumsfeld is a dick
- Won't flow the forces we need
- We will be too light.
- Like his boss, Rotkoff quickly realizes that for all the rhetoric from Bush and his officials, the Pentagon isn't very focused on the entire WMD issue. Both Marks and Rotkoff realize that even one small chemical or biological assault from the Iraqi forces might be enough to stymie the US assault. Although Marks is able to get funding through NSA chief General Michael Hayden for new satellite imagery of some of the 946 suspect sites, and is privy to some NSA intercepts, but though Hayden calls the compendium a "massive but circumstantial" set of evidence for WMDs, Marks doesn't think of it as massive, but instead a lot of "snippets," all of which is as best circumstantial. Woodward writes of Marks, "It was a paradox. On the one hand, he was troubled that he still couldn't say with conviction that he could prove any particular site had WMD. On the other, he still harbored no real doubt that they were there -- somewhere. The intelligence had conditioned him to expect it."
- As time moves on, Marks becomes increasingly frustrated with his lack of intelligence about the all-important WMDs, and the lack of interest from the CIA and DIA. "I can't get DIA to move," he tells his boss, General David McKiernan. "You need to fire me." McKiernan refuses. Marks then tells McKiernan, "Sir, I can't confirm what's in any of those sites." About one site, a suspected chemical production plant, he says, "There is no confirming intelligence that that's what it does. It's labeled as such and it's got a bunch of signs on it that we can see from overhead imagery, and we've got some architectural designs and that's what it's designed to do. But I can't confirm that that's what it's doing today in the Year of Our Lord 2002." McKiernan says, "Got it. Let's move on," leaving Marks with an even more stark realization that whatever is to be found, it's going to be on him to find it, with virtually no help.
- Eventually, Marks gets an actual military unit assigned to find and neutralize the supposed WMDs, after months of wrangling. The battalion will be called the "Sensitive Site Exploitation Task Force." Marks is dissatisfied. The battalion has only a few hundred ordinary soldiers to cover the entire country, and is commanded by a low-level lieutenant colonel. Considering that the issue of Iraq's WMDs is the driving force behind the public rationalization for the invasion, Marks considers it odd and even negligent to assign a single untrained battalion under such a low-ranking officer for the job. "There is no more important or critical mission for the nation," he writes in his diary, "and DOD keeps wire brushing us/pushing back on our requests -- Incredible!" On his own, he works out an arrangement with a general in the Army's III Corps to reassign an artillery brigade to the task. The brigade is renamed the 75th Exploitation Task Force and given the job of finding Iraq's WMDs. In what is called in military parlance a "field expedient solution," Marks finally finds someone who might be able to handle the job.
- Unbeknownst to Marks, Rumsfeld is wrestling with the same doubts about Iraq's WMDs. In a classified memo from October 15, he lists 29 things that could go wrong in Iraq, a memo he shares with Bush and the NSC. One of the items is, "US could fail to find WMD on the ground." Woodward later asks Rumsfeld about his doubts and concerns, and Rumsfeld says, somewhat circuitously, "I was very worried about it. I worry about intelligence. I have to." He adds that over time, he developed confidence and conviction that the WMDs existed. "I think everyone did." He also denies ever knowing Marks, his chief of intelligence on the ground: "I may have met him, but I don't know him." (Bob Woodward)
- October 9: As discussed extensively elsewhere in this site, Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba delivers the American embassy in Rome copies of documents pertaining to the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium transaction. Burba had acquired the documents from a shadowy source with connections to Italy's intelligence service, SISMI, and who originally wanted 15,000 Euros for the documents but eventually agreed to turn them over for nothing. The embassy sends the documents to the CIA, where they quickly make their way to the State Department for authentication. The documents, as everyone but the Bush administration seems to realize, are crude forgeries. (Frank Rich [PDF file])
- October 9: Former Montana governor Marc Racicot, who left his position as an Enron lobbyist in 2001 to head the National Republican Party, is vociferously critical of those who question George W. Bush's military career. It is illuminating to examine Racicot's own military record. A press release on the Republican National Committee website says, "Marc Racicot graduated from Carroll College in 1970, where he was an Army ROTC Graduate and Class President." Unfortunately, Carroll College has not had a ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) program since World War II. He graduated from Carroll College in the spring of 1970 with a draft number of 23 -- ripe for being chosen to serve in Vietnam. Instead, Carroll attended law school at the University of Montana, where he did enroll in Army ROTC; he graduated in the spring of 1973, well after the draft was over. Racicot then joined the Army as a captain and a lawyer, and was assigned to a post in West Germany for 32 months. It is hard to understand how Racicot was able to avoid the draft with such a low draft number; the fact that no draft registration data on him exists in either Lincoln County, where he grew up, or in Lewis and Clark County, where he attended Carroll College, doesn't make it any easier to solve the mystery. Racicot has attacked Democrats over their patriotism for not supporting the drive for war with Iraq, saying, "It's a legitimate issue because it reflects upon the character and capacity to lead." Racicot's own military record is also such a reflection. (Billings Outpost)
Congress authorizes military force against Iraq
"[The White House had used] the pressures of the election to get this thing done before the election. The intensity, the manipulation, the tone of the speeches, the urgency. They were maximizing the sense Americans had that we could be attacked tomorrow. There was no question that this was being manipulated." -- Republican senator Chuck Hagel
- October 10 - 11: Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle agrees to support Bush's request for authority to use military force in Iraq. "I believe it is important for America to speak with one voice," he says. The next day, impelled by the doomsday rhetoric from administration officials, Congress will vote overwhelmingly to give Bush the authority to unilaterally attack Iraq if he chooses. What Lewis Lapham calls "docile majorities" in both houses of Congress pass, with little discussion and almost no public dissent, a resolution authorizing Bush to invade Iraq at any time, for any reason. (The House votes 296-133 in favor, the Senate, 77-23.) Lapham writes that Congress was apparently "much relieved to escape the chore -- tiresome, unpopular, time-consuming, poorly paid -- of republican self-government." Many Congressmen in both houses and in both parties say later that if they had known more of the truth, they would have voted differently. Bush will use this vote as an excuse to grant himself sweeping "wartime" powers that are explicitly denied him by the US Constitution as well as the 1973 War Powers Act. Author Robert Morris, a member of the Nixon and Johnson National Security Councils, writes, "Not that this should surprise us. Shortly before he died in 1989, the eminent American writer Robert Penn Warren, author of All The King's Men, a novel about a democratic demagogue and dictator, was asked if he foresaw another president with too much power. 'Well, it'll probably be someone you least expect under circumstances nobody foresaw,' he said. 'And, of course, it'll come with a standing ovation from Congress.'"
- Bush signs the bill into law on October 16, saying, "With this resolution, Congress has now authorized the use of force. I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use will not become necessary."
- Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who has grave doubts about the necessity of invading Iraq and the rationale behind the war plans, nevertheless allows loyalty to trump reason, and delivers the emotional final address before the vote, exhorting the House members to back Bush. Armey reiterates the arguments Cheney laid out for him two weeks before (see the above item), telling the House that the government has undeniable proof of connections between "Hussein and "a myriad of evil terrorist organizations." He speaks ominously of suitcases full of biological or chemical weapons that could be triggered to explode in "a train depot, a service station, an airport." He says that Hussein is prepared to launch an attack on Israel at any time, and "to me, an attack on Israel is an attack on America." His only caveat is a plea for Bush to use his authorization wisely. All but six House Republicans vote for the measure; 81 Democrats vote for it as well. By this point, responding to the relentless drumbeat of misinformation and outright lies from Bush, Dick Cheney, and other senior administration officials, 66% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein actively helped the 9/11 terrorists plan and execute their attacks, according to a Pew poll.
- In the months and years after his speech, Armey, who put party loyalty ahead of his own dire misgivings, finds it impossible to assuage his conscience. He tries for weeks to convince himself that he didn't actually vote (and guide others' votes) for a war, but merely voted to give Bush the option to use military force, to strengthen his hand in negotiating with the recalcitrant Hussein. He has already decided to retire from the House after his term expires at the end of 2002, and the Iraq debacle strengthens his desire to leave the world of politics behind.
- Armey is not the only Republican troubled by the vote. Fellow House member Walter Jones, whose North Carolina district includes the large Marine base of Camp Lejeune, also votes for the resolution, but leaves the House floor with a divided conscience. Jones has never been fully convinced of the necessity of war by the administration's briefings and so-called evidence. And he feels that people were manipulated by appeals to emotion and patriotism rather than by facts. "There's something about this, I can't put my finger on it," he tells his chief of staff that evening. "But I just don't feel good about this vote."
- The next day, in the Senate, every Republican but one who speaks on the floor backs the resolution. They are joined by a number of Democrats. The justifications for war -- Hussein's proven biological and chemical weapons caches, Iraq's proven ties to al-Qaeda -- are echoed by Democrats and Republicans alike. Some Democrats follow the lead of Daschle and Joseph Biden, who says that although he is unconvinced that Iraq has the WMDs the administration is insisting exist, the resolution can help promote peace in the Middle East. These Democrats are counting on Colin Powell to prod the UN Security Council into passing a resolution that would compel Hussein into allowing UN inspectors unfettered access to his nation's weapons stockpiles. "Thank God for Colin Powell," Biden proclaims. Even Chuck Hagel, a Republican, says he will vote for the resolution even though he says, "We have heard precious little from the president, his team, as well as from this Congress...about these most difficult and critical questions" surrounding the aftermath of such an invasion, and calls Bush's plans to impose democracy on Iraq "a roll of the dice." Democrat John Kerry also votes for the resolution, a vote that will come back to haunt him in the 2004 presidential campaign. Reluctant Democrats' position can perhaps be summed up best by Daschle's justification: "We had just experienced 9/11. Bush was telling me that Iraq had WMD and we had to move. [Democrats who backed the resolution] were looking at where the country was. The country expected us to work together. We felt threatened."
- One of the few to speak out against the resolution is liberal Democrat Paul Wellstone, who argues presciently that the resolution will "give the president the authority for a possible go-it-alone, unilateral military strike and ground war.... Our focus should be going to the United Nations Security Council." Democrat Bob Nelson, the chair of the Intelligence Committee, joins Wellstone in denouncing the resolution, quoting Winston Churchill to warn that once war is joined, it will be impossible to predict the outcomes: "Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy, but the slave of unforeesable and uncontrollable events." Their words go unheeded.
- Years later, Hagel, who will eventually lead the breakaway Republicans who finally come out against the war, says of the legislation that the White House had used "the pressures of the election to get this thing done before the election. The intensity, the manipulation, the tone of the speeches, the urgency. They were maximizing the sense Americans had that we could be attacked tomorrow. There was no question that this was being manipulated."
- Democrats like Biden and Wellstone were somewhat heartened by Powell's efforts, supported by Great Britain, to get the UN Security Council to force intrusive weapons inspections on Iraq. But they had no idea that it was all for show, that the decision had been made almost from the moment Bush entered office in 2001 to invade Iraq. Now Congress has given him all the legal cover Bush needs to invade.
- On March 27, 2006, former Democratic senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart says of the vote, "...I get angry at my own party. I think the Democrats before they voted for or against a resolution should have asked a lot of questions about the long-term. And it was not really done. I think it's the opposition party's duty to raise all the questions and demand answers before supporting any policy of this sort and they didn't -- leading Democrats -- didn't do that. ...If you listen to the Republican leaders, they keep chanting, 'Support the president, support the president.' When you join the Congress, you do not take an oath to support the president. You take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and to oversee the operations of the Executive Branch. And this Republican Congress and its Democratic allies have not been doing their job." (USA Today, MSNBC/Awesome Library, Globe and Mail/CommonDreams, Impeach for Peace [PDF copy of actual resolution, finalized on October 16], Frank Rich [PDF file], Lewis Lapham, David Corn, Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Air America Playbook)
"The resolution was a resolution that authorized the president to take that action if he deemed it necessary. Had I been more true to myself and the principles I believed in at the time, I would have openly opposed the whole adventure vocally and aggressively. I had a tough time reconciling doing that against the duties of majority leader in the House. I would have served myself and my party and my country better, though, had I done so." -- Dick Armey, February 4, 2007, quoted by McClatchy News
- October 10: Retired Army General Wesley Clark pens a column for CNN advising that the US hold off on invading Iraq. He acknowledges Saddam Hussein is "a cunning, stubborn and potentially irrational opponent of the United States," but notes that "[t]he primary threat to American lives and interests around the world remains the terrorists of al-Qaeda." He continues, "To be sure, in the last few weeks there have been important breakthroughs in the fight against terrorism. But we need to keep our eye on the ball, and as we extend our military operations into Iraq, we should do so in a way that advances the campaign against al-Qaeda and minimizes the risks of greater regional instability." Clark says that the Bush administration did not handle the issue with the American people properly: "We must also have sustained public support, but so far, our national debate on Iraq has been upside down. The Administration announced its aim to change the regime in Baghdad before it made the case for action. To some, our government seemed to be seeking war as a preferred choice rather than as a last resort. We need a real debate to gain the full and informed support of the American people as we move ahead." Clark says that the US has the time and the ability to handle the situation properly, through the United Nations, and in the process earn the trust and support of the surrounding Arab nations as well as the other nations of the world. "This will only take a few more weeks," he concludes, "and it's important. It's not just about winning a war -- it's also about winning the peace." (CNN)
- October 10: In a speech to the Middle East Institute, retired General Anthony Zinni spells out how he would have ordered the Bush administration's foreign policy priorities. (Zinni was formerly Bush's envoy to the Middle East, and preceded General Tommy Franks as commander of CENTCOM.) Iraq is, according to Zinni, a sixth-order priority. Zinni says, "First and foremost, the Middle East peace process and getting it back on track. Second, it is ensuring that Iran's reformation or moderation continues on track and trying to help and support the people who are trying to make that change in the best way we can. That's going to take a lot of intelligence and careful work. The third is to make sure those countries to which we have now committed ourselves to change, like Afghanistan and those in central Asia, we invest what we need to in the way of resources there to make that change happen. Fourth is to patch up these relationships that have become strained, and fifth is to reconnect to the people. We are talking past each other. The dialogue is heated. We have based this on things that are tough to compromise on, like religion and politics, and we need to reconnect it in a different way." After these remarks are reported, Zinni is informed that he "will never be used by the White House again." (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
- Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, a fierce Bush loyalist, implores Bush to make a better case for war with Iraq than he has so far. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Noonan writes that for Bush to say, "'Saddam is evil' is not enough. A number of people are evil, and some are even our friends. 'Saddam has weapons of mass destruction' is not enough. A number of countries do. What the people need now is hard data that demonstrate conclusively that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction which he is readying to use on the people of the US or the people of the West." (Frank Rich p.61)
- October 12: Two coordinated bombs go off in front of two nightclubs in Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 (mostly Australian vacationers) and injuring 209. It is considered the worst act of terror in Indonesian history. Shortly thereafter, Abu Bakar Bashir, a leader of the Jemaah Islamiya organization, is charged and later convicted of conspiracy over the attacks. Jemaah Islamiya is considered affiliated with, if not a part of, al-Qaeda. A JI fighter named Amorzi, who runs the attack, later says, "There's some pride in my heart. For the white people it serves them right. They know how to destroy religion by the most subtle ways through bars and gambling dens." President Bush immediately seizes on the bombings as further justification for his push towards war with Iraq, claiming Saddam Hussein intends to deploy al-Qaeda terrorists as his "forward army" against Western targets with attacks similar to the Bali bombing, though no connection between the Bali bombing and Iraq has ever been made. (Wikipedia, David Corn, Michael Scheuer)
The Bali bombing
- October 12: Addressing the UN General Council, Bush tells the assemblage, "should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year." This is flatly untrue; US intelligence estimates that even if Hussein does manage to get his hands on weapons-grade uranium, it will be a decade or more before Iraq can build a nuclear weapon of any kind. Bush tells the assemblage, "The first time we may be completely certain he has a nuclear weapon is when, God forbids, he uses one," ignoring the fact that not only is Hussein unlikely to have nuclear weapons for a decade or more, but that Iraq is so closely monitored that any such development would have long since been discovered by the US or the UN well before any such weapon had a chance of being deployed. "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon," he tells the assemblage, knowing full well that US intelligence has already determined that those tubes were not for any nuclear purposes.
- Once again, Bush speciously makes the claim of a connection between the Hussein regime and al-Qaeda: "With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime were to supply these weapons to terrorist allies, then the attacks of September the 11th would be a prelude to far greater horrors." Of course, this supposed link does not exist.
- "The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion," Bush concludes. "Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take." Once again, Bush's stark, near-apocalyptic rhetoric is not reflected in the truth. (Bush on Iraq)
- October 13: Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had recently conducted a fruitless search in Niger for evidence of the purported Iraq-Niger urainium deal, writes an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News arguing that Bush is being too confrontational, that it is obvious Bush is using a thin argument about Iraqi WMDs to justify his own desire to smash the Hussein regime, and that Bush could work with the UN to compel Hussein to disarm. Wilson sends copies to three former high-ranking Republicans: George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and Brent Scowcroft, all of whom he had worked with as America's acting ambassador to Iraq before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Scowcroft is impressed enough to forward a copy to Bush's national security director, Condoleezza Rice -- a position Scowcroft had occupied under the elder Bush. "I did think they ought to talk to somebody who had experience with Saddam," Scowcroft later notes. "I made the point in a little note: 'Here's a person who has actually dealt with Saddam.'" Both Baker and the elder Bush also respond positively, with the elder Bush writing a note that says he agrees "with almost everything" in the column. Wilson begins hearing from cable television news show producers to ask him to come on their shows and discuss his views. Wilson is heartened: he won the respect of the members of the first Bush administration, maybe he can have some impact on the thinking of the current administration as well. But neither Wilson nor Scowcroft ever hear back from anyone in the White House. (Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- October 14: As part of his commentary on the Bali bombings two days before, Bush tells the country, "[Saddam Hussein] is a man that we know has had connections with al-Qaeda. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al-Qaeda as a forward army." By this point, the administration is well aware that al-Qaeda has no connections whatsoever with the Hussein regime, and in fact would like nothing more than to see Hussein deposed and an Islamic theocracy take his place. (Newsday, Bush on Iraq)
- Mid-October: The State Department receives copies of the documents purporting to prove that Iraq tried to buy enriched "yellowcake" uranium from Niger, forwarded to them from the US embassy in Rome (see earlier items). A State Department analyst and nuclear weapons expert, Simon Dodge, suspects after initial review that the documents are rank forgeries. One of the documents details a secret meeting that supposedly took place at the home of the Iraqi ambassador in Rome on June 14, 2002. There, military officials of the world's leading outlaw states -- Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, and Pakistan -- gathered to form an alliance of mutual defense against the West. This "plan of action" for "Global Support" would include "Islamic patriots accusing of belonging to criminal organizations." Dodge thinks the document reads more like an amateurish spy novel. In the words of reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn, "A worldwide alliance of rogue states and Islamic terrorists? This was something out of James Bond -- or maybe Austin Powers." Dodge finds the entire construct "completely implausible," as he later tells Senate investigators. And the document bears an obviously bogus Nigerian embassy stamp, "to make it look official, I guess." The same fraudulent stamp is on the uranium documentation papers. If the uranium documents come from the same source as the ludicrous "Global Support" alliance documents, then that surely indicates both sets of papers are bogus. Dodge alerts his colleagues to his conclusion that the entire batch is nothing more than forgeries.
- INR analyst Wayne White concurs. White takes about fifteen minutes to begin questioning their authenticity. And Colin Powell's chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, recalls discussing the papers with an intelligence analyst who walks him through the improbabilities of Iraq having massive quantities of uranium transported through Niger in fleets of trucks to an East African port city without any executives of the French consortium who manages Niger's uranium mines, or any international inspectors, noticing. By the time the analyst is finished, Wilkerson recalls, "we were laughing our *sses off."
- While the State Department's INR and other experts immediately pronouce the documents forgeries, thus proving that the entire tale of Nigeran uranium being bought by Iraq false, the CIA never bothers to review the documents itself. An agency official at the Counterproliferation Division merely shoves the documents in a vault. By refusing to examine the documents, the CIA could, and did, allow the White House to continue making specious accusations about Iraq's nuclear ambitions. (Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- October 16: Faced with a diplomatic standoff, the Bush administration chooses to muzzle all news of North Korea's nuclear program and that regime's refusal to disarm at the demand of the US until today. It grudgingly admits that North Korea has admitted to having a well-developed and growing nuclear program only after it learns that the information has already been leaked to the press, though Condoleezza Rice will deny the hush-up. Instead, Rice will claim, Bush simply hadn't been presented with options until October 15th. "What was surprising to us was not that there was a program," Rice will say. "What was surprising to us was that the North Koreans admitted there was a program."
- A former US intelligence official blames the impasse, and the failure to admit the existence of North Korea's program, on the deep divide between US intelligence services and the neo-conservatives in the administration. "We couldn't get people's attention, and, even if we could, they never had a sensible approach. The administration was deeply, viciously ideological." He says that the Bush administration is contemptuous not only of the Pyongyang government but of earlier efforts by the Clinton White House to address the problem of nuclear proliferation. "When it came time to confront North Korea, we had no plan, no contact -- nothing to negotiate with. You have to be in constant diplomatic contact, so you can engage and be in the strongest position to solve the problem. But we let it all fall apart."
- He continues, "The...meeting and the subsequent American statement have tipped the balance in Pyongyang. The North Koreans were already terrifically suspicious of the United States. They saw the [US] message as 'When you fix this, get back to us.' They were very angry. That, plus the fact that they feel they are next in line after Iraq, made them believe they had to act very quickly to protect themselves." The Bush administration scrambles to deny that there is a crisis; while a White House spokesperson initially characterizes the President as finding it "troubling, sobering news," other administration officials, particularly Rice, work hard to keep attention focused on Iraq and away from North Korea. She says at one point, "Saddam Hussein is in a category by himself." An arms-control official says, "The White House didn't want to deal with a second crisis."
- For the next few months, the administration will vacillate between tough-talking public pronouncements and private attempts to indirectly open negotiations with the North Koreans. North Korea, meanwhile, will expel international inspectors, renounce the nonproliferation treaty, and threaten to once again begin reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, while insisting on direct talks with the Bush Administration. One Clinton Administration official who was involved in the 1994 talks with Kim Jong Il says that he is deeply disappointed by the North Korean actions. "The deal was that we'd give them two reactors and they, in turn, have to knock off this sh*t. They've got something going, and it's in violation of the deal." Nonetheless, the official says, the Bush Administration "has got to talk to Kim Jong Il." Even though the 1994 agreement was violated repeatedly by North Korea, and even though it has been depicted by neo-conservatives as a failed attempt to mollycoddle North Korea, the CIA shows that the agreement succeeded in keeping North Korea from building as many as 100 nuclear warheads.
- In January 2003, Bush will give in and agree to consider a renewal of American aid to North Korea in return for a commitment from Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program. However, the administration will continue to resist engaging in direct talks with North Korea. And an American intelligence official who attends regular White House briefings warns, "Bush and Cheney want that guy's head" -- Kim Jong Il's -- "on a platter. Don't be distracted by all this talk about negotiations. There will be negotiations, but they have a plan, and they are going to get this guy after Iraq. He's their version of Hitler." (The New Yorker)
- October 17: A federal judge rules against Dick Cheney, and demands that Cheney comply with the request of conservative watchdog organization Judicial Watch and environmental group the Sierra Club to turn over documents relating to his Energy Task Force. The Bush administration refuses to turn over any documents, and continues to fight their release. A similar lawsuit by the General Accounting Office, the Congressional investigative body, is later dropped. (CCR/Break On Through)
- October 20: Over 100 Army Rangers parachute into a Taliban-held airbase 60 miles southwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan. The footage of the jump, videotaped through a night lens by a military cameraman, dominates American news coverage for days afterwards. Another team of Rangers and Delta Force soldiers attack a complex outside Kandahar which includes a house used by Taliban leader Mullah Omar. General Richard Myers, the new head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, characterizes resistance as "light and says the operation is a success. While the operation is a media showstopper, the reality, which goes unreported, is far different. Some Delta Force participants sneer at the staged nature of the raids, which they say were little more than photo ops. The Rangers' dramatic night jump into the Taliban airfield was preceded by a secret incursion by an Army Pathfinder unit that confirmed the airbase was deserted. "It was a television show," says an informed source. "The Rangers were not the first ones in." One participant asks, "Why would you film it? I'm a big fan of keeping things secret -- and this was being driven by public opinion."
- The raid on Omar's complex was in actuality a near-disaster that makes Myers rethink future Special Forces operations inside Afghanistan. The Delta Force soldiers had met fierce Taliban resistance, and suffered heavy casualties. Some Delta Force participants later call the raid a "total goat f*ck" -- slang for a nearly complete disaster. The "complex" was little more than a brick house long since abandoned by Omar, potholed roads, and a small garrison of thatched huts. Instead of their preferred stealth incursion, the Delta and Ranger soldiers entered the area after a heavy air assault by attack helicopters; they found nothing of value in the house. They are ambushed after they leave the house by hidden Taliban soldiers firing small arms and RPGs. The Americans are forced to retreat in disarray, barely managing to get their wounded out of harm's way. One Delta Force soldier snarls that the military planners "think we can perform f*cking miracles. We can't. Don't put us in an environment we weren't prepared for. Next time, we're going to lose a company." The debacle causes a series of bitter arguments and tactical revisions on the senior command level, as well as a request by the Americans for the assignment of the entire regiment of Britain's elite commando unit, the SAS (Special Air Service), to Afghanistan. A senior military officer says that the US senior commander, General Tommy Franks, is "clueless" and calls the planning for the raids "special Ops 101." He concludes, "We'll get there, but it's going to get ugly." (Seymour Hersh)
- October 20: Condoleezza Rice insists that a peaceful solution can be found for Iraq: "We're going to seek a peaceful solution to this. We think that one is possible." Note that according to Richard Haas, Bush's director of policy planning at the State Department, the decision had already been made to invade by July 2002. (CBS/Buzzflash)
- October 21: Saddam Hussein declares a general amnesty for Iraqi prisoners, causing a mass exodus from Iraq's jails. The New York Times reports, "At the Abu Ghraib prison, a sprawling compound on the desert floor 20 miles west of Baghdad that has become a notorious symbol of fear among Iraqis for its history of mass executions and allegations of torture, the heavy steel gates gave way under the crush of a huge crowd of relatives who rushed to the jail within an hour of the amnesty broadcast. All semblance of order vanished as a cheering mob surged through the compound, in some cases joining prison guards in smashing cell-block walls to free weeping inmates." The same scene is repeated at prisons around Iraq. Only "Zionist and American spies" and a few murderers who have not yet settled the "blood money" debt traditionally owed to the victims' families stay behind bars, but it is certain that even many of those prisoners are released in the general chaos.
- The Times reports, "A statement issued in his name described the move as a gesture of gratitude to Iraq's 22 million people for re-electing him president last week in a ballot that yielded an official return of 100 percent for the only candidate. But much else suggested that the growing threat of war with the United States may have spurred what is undoubtedly the most punitive government in the Arab world toward a sudden gesture of magnanimity. Among Iraqi exiles, the common view was that President Bush, in demanding the ouster of Mr. Hussein, has already struck at the foundations of his power, by serving notice that the days of the 65-year-old president, an absolute ruler since he seized power in 1979, may be numbered by America's military might. In this view, opening the prisons was a dramatic last-ditch reach for popularity -- a signal to Iraqis that Mr. Hussein is now ready to become a herald of a new and more tolerant Iraq, and to put behind him the image Mr. Bush sketched in a speech two weeks ago in which he explained his reasons for threatening a military strike on Iraq, when he called him a 'dictator,' a 'student of Stalin' and a man who uses 'murder as a tool of terror.' Other Iraqis suggested privately that there might be more hard-headed reasons: the need to bolster loyalty in the army and state security forces, which have seen much of their leadership decimated over the years in purges; possibly, too, the need to stiffen resolve in the military by boosting recruitment and staunching desertions." (New York Times/Infoshop)
- October 22: Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank writes an article headlined, "For Bush, Facts are Malleable," a polite way of calling the president a liar. Milbank provides numerous points of evidence to back up his thesis, including lies about Iraq, about the economy, and about the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. In response, a White House aide calls the authors of ABC's The Note, a renowned Web-based political analysis site, and, in David Corn's words, "trash-talked" Milbank. Milbank's article may be the first in the mainstream media to pointedly challenge Bush's credibility. (Washington Post/Truthout, David Corn)
- October 23 - 26: Chechen Islamists seize a theater in Moscow and hold over 800 patrons hostage for 58 hours before the theater is attacked by Russian forces and retaken. Over 40 Chechen fighters die in the firefight; at least 129 of the hostages die. "As a goal it was an extremely daring operation," says an al-Qaeda spokesman later in congratulations to the Chechens, "...the mujahedeen have clearly demonstrated that they can strike at the enemy on its own turf whenever they want." Weeks later, Bush says he supports the Russians' bloody retaking of the theater, equating the Chechens with "the killers who came to America" and says Russian president Vladimir Putin should "do what it takes to protect his people." Al-Qaeda is savagely critical of the US for its support, claiming that the US is allowing Russia to "liquidate the Chechen issue through brutality." (Michael Scheuer)
- October 24: Brett Bursey, the executive director of the South Carolina Progressive Network, is arrested for holding a sign that reads "No War for Oil" outside a venue where Bush is giving a speech at the Columbia airport. Bursey is standing peacefully with hundreds of other demonstrators who are holding pro-Bush signs. He is charged with threatening the president's safety and being in a restricted area. Bursey says the police told him to move to a designated "free speech zone," and refused, responding, "I thought the whole country was a free speech zone." After being handcuffed and led away, Bursey says he asked the policeman who was leading him away if it was the content of his sign that was responsible for the charges, and the police officer confirms it. Eleven members of Congress, including one Republican, ask the Justice Department to drop the charges; one of those, Democrat Barney Frank, says, "I'm all in favor of a free speech zone. I think it should be the United States of America. The notion that there should be places where you can engage in free speech and places where you can't is totally antithetical to the Constitution." On January 6, 2004, Bursey will be found guilty and fined $500. Bursey will appeal the conviction. (Amy Goodman and David Goodman, South Carolina Progressive Network, The State)
- October 25: The Council on Foreign Relations releases a report on US national security written by a commission chaired by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, the same two who chaired the previous commission on terrorism and national security. The CFR report, titled "America's Still at Risk. America's Still Unprepared," is dismissed by the Bush administration as a report produced outside the government that did not have the access to information necessary to produce a worthwhile report. Hart bluntly disagrees with this assessment: "The members of that panel included two former Secretaries of State, including George Shultz and Warren Christopher, three Nobel Prize winners, some of the top security experts in the country. And Warren [Rudman] and I, who had, by now, spent three or four years of our lives on this -– to say we were outside the government, and therefore couldn't know what was going on, is nonsense. We talked to an awful lot of first responders. I personally have talked with mayors. I've talked with fire departments, police departments. We talked with the City of New York. We talked to an awful lot of people. And so this wasn't wild speculation. Warren's report absolutely tracks what all of us have been reporting all along; that is, that the integration of the federal, state and local government simply has not taken place." The commission will issue a second report in the summer of 2003 that is all but ignored by the media and the administration. (Buzzflash, Gary Hart News)
Paul Wellstone dies in plane crash; GOP attacks his memorial service as "partisan politics"
- October 25: Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone dies in a plane crash near the town of Eveleth, Minnesota. His wife. daughter, three staff members, and the pilot also die in the crash. Bad weather is blamed for the crash. Wellstone, one of the most outspoken liberal voices in the US Senate, is the frontrunner in the race to retain his seat. Four days later, a memorial service to Wellstone's memory will draw 20,000 people and become a celebration of Wellstone's politics and a rally to keep his senate seat, drawing fire from Republicans who believe the tone of the memorial should have been more circumspect. A Minnesota Democratic official says the memorial was extremely "emotional," and "[i]t wasn't politics; it was Paul Wellstone." His replacement, hastily drafted former senator Walter Mondale, loses narrowly to Norm Coleman, the candidate hand-picked by the Bush administration to run against Wellstone. Wellstone's death and the loss of his Senate seat to the GOP gives control of the US Congress to the Republicans. (See below, November 7, for more information on Wellstone's memorial and the election.) (CNN, CNN)
Investigators pore over the wreckage of the Wellstone plane crash
- October 26: Afghan guerrilla leader Abdul Haq, a hero in the war against the Soviets and a prominent leader in the war against the Taliban, is killed. Haq is ambushed and executed by a force of Taliban soldiers; he is known in intelligence circles to have been on a secret mission for the CIA, possibly to try to recruit Taliban defectors, and was captured with a large sum of money on his person. Haq's close friend Kurt Lohbeck, a former stringer for CBS television, says that Haq had secured the intent of several high-level Taliban members to defect, and was in the process of bringing them back when he was captured. Lohbeck says that Haq was double-crossed, and adds, "I'm furious at the CIA. They didn't provide operational security." (Seymour Hersh)
- October 26: Four prisoners are freed from Guantanamo Bay, the first of the 600 or so prisoners there to be released. The four, mostly elderly Afghan men, are released because they were determined not to be involved in al-Qaeda and posed no security threat. One released detainee is so old and senile that he babbles incoherently, and cannot answer simple questions. Another, an Afghani, says he was scooped up after being forced to take the battlefield by the Taliban; he surrendered to the Americans the first chance he got, and was wrongly identified by an Afghani warlord as a senior Taliban official: "They [the Americans] came and took ten strong-looking people. Only one of those ten was a Talib." 19 more are released in March 2003. The prisoners are supposedly being kept there to be interrogated about what they know of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But it is reported that virtually none of the prisoners in Guantanamo have any useful information. One US official says, "[Guantanamo] is a dead end" for fresh intelligence information. According to the Washington Post, "Officials realize many of them had little intelligence value to begin with...." US officials privately concede that "perhaps as many as 100 other captives" are innocent of any connections to al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but most of these still have not been released. Furthermore, not a single prisoner has been brought before a US military tribunal. Apparently this is to hide "a sorry fact: the US mostly netted Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters of only low to middling importance, bagging few of the real bad guys." At least 59 were deemed to have no intelligence even before being sent to Cuba, but were nonetheless sent there, apparently because of bureaucratic inertia. Seymour Hersh writes, "The target of all the duplicity and double-talk was not, of course, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, but the American press corps, and the American people." (CCR, Seymour Hersh)
- October 26: Barack Obama, a young, popular state senator from Illinois, delivers a powerful denunciation of the Bush administration's drive towards war with Iraq. Obama says in part, "I don't oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
- "Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.
- "You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.
- "You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that...we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.
- "You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.
- "You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.
- "Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair." (Barack Obama
- October 28: Senior US diplomat Laurence Foley, working for the US Agency for International Development in Jordan, is assassinated by Arab gunmen. Three suspects reveal under Jordanian interrogation that they were paid to assassinate Foley by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the Iraq-based terrorist group Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. Zarqawi is widely believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, and is believed to consider himself a colleague and possible rival of Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi is believed by some to have lost a leg, and may have been injured during a Northern Alliance missile strike in Afghanistan. The story of the lost leg may be false. (Wikipedia, Michael Scheuer)
- October 28: A huge antiwar protest takes place in Washington, D.C.; unofficial police estimates place the size of the crowd between 150,000 and 200,000. The next day, the New York Times reports that "fewer people had attended than organizers had hoped for...even though the sun came out." NPR reports that "fewer than 10,000" actually show up. Unfortunately for these news outlets, and the others who carry their stories, C-SPAN broadcasts live coverage of the protests; anyone with eyes can see that the crowds are indeed enormous. The Washington Post accurately reports that over 100,000 protesters appear in the largest antiwar protest since the Vietnam War. It turns out that the Times article is written by a reporter who was not even at the rally, but who is pulled off the story to work on an article about a sniper operating in the Washington area. Three days later, the Times runs another article saying that the protest was much larger than anticipated, with organizers obtaining protest permits for around 20,000 and being stunned at the much larger turnout. It reports that police estimated the crowd at well over 100,000, and organizers estimating as many as 200,000. The reporter for the original story later admits that she left the protest before it was underway, and based her numbers on the early numbers of protesters trickling in before the scheduled time. She says that when she realized that her first estimates were far lower than reality, she called in a correction, but the Times editors ignored it. Two days after the event, NPR airs a correction, saying that the crowd size was "substantially larger" than it originally reported. A Times editor is asked by Kris Abrams, a producer of the Democracy Now radio show, "Why didn't you print a correction stating that your first article was wrong?" The editor replies that the Times didn't make a mistake and that no correction was warranted. Abrams asks, "Well, what do you call it, then?" The editor responds that it is merely a matter of emphasis. (Amy Goodman and David Goodman)
- October 28: Bush tells an appreciative audience in New Mexico that Saddam Hussein "has made the United look foolish," and in the next breath chimes in himself to show his contempt and disregard for the UN: "I went to the United Nations. I said to them as clearly as I could, in Western language, I said, 'You can be an effective body to help us keep the peace, you can be an effective UN, or you can be the League of Nations.'" Note the phrasing -- the UN can either help the US "keep the peace" by supporting a preemptive invasion of Iraq, or it can become irrelevant. His aggression and condescension towards the UN is quite clear. (Mark Crispin Miller)
- October 29: The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is signed into law by Bush. The law is designed to help states replace outdated voting systems with more sophisticated electronic voting machines. Republicans, led by Senator Mitch McConnell, jam "ballot integrity" measures into the legislation that undermines the effect of the law, such as a requirement that a first-time voter show a photo ID and a confirmation of address. This provision works to block many minority voters from voting; for example, in Louisiana, a black voter is only one-fifth as likely to have a driver's license or other photo ID as a white. (As in most states, black voters are much more likely to vote Democrat.) Such a demand, says Laughlin McDonald of the American Prospect, "doesn't make it harder to commit fraud; it just makes it harder to vote." HAVA also requires all 50 states to conduct "voter purges" similar to that which disenfranchised tens of thousands of legal voters in Florida. Eric Alterman and Mark Green observe, "While Republican senators claim they fear fraud, what they apparently fear is more voters." Unfortunately, in the case of one leading set of e-voting machines, Diebold, a 2003 report by Johns Hopkins University says that the machines are candy for hackers. "Common voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected," says the report, which analyzed Diebold's software used in the machines. "Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards," says the report, which claims the code is riddled with "unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes" before spelling out a scenario in which a middling hacker steals the vote by stamping out fake voter smartcards using a $100 desktop printer. Instead of admitting to error and trying to fix the problem, Diebold will launch a PR assault smearing the report's credibility. Several of the companies providing voting machines under the Act, including Diebold, ES&S, and AIS, are either founded or operated, or both, by far-right Christian evangelicals, including Diebold's Bob Urosevich and ES&S Todd Urosevich. Evangelical Howard Ahmanson, who funded AIS, says, "My goal is total integration of Biblical law into our lives." Presumably his machines will be used to help "elect" lawmakers to office to help further that end. (Nation,, Slate, Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Mark Crispin Miller)
- October 30: The Bush adminstration invites over 50 conservative radio talk show hosts to broadcast directly from the White House lawn the week before the midterm elections. Administration members such as Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge, Karl Rove, and Mary Matalin make the rounds of the hosts, giving soft interviews to the reliably conservative hosts. "I just don't see a political component to it at all," says a White House spokesperson. (Joe Conason, Paul Waldman)
- October 30: A rally to support the re-election of Texas governor Rick Perry, a Republican, has a dismal turnout even though Vice President Cheney is on hand. Says Tom DeLay, "I know we could have thousands [here] if we just had a memorial service," referring to the huge public memorial service for Paul Wellstone the day before. The media gives DeLay's vicious little joke a pass. (Mark Crispin Miller)
- Late October: Talk in the Pentagon and White House centers around "lowered expectations" concerning Afghanistan and the capture of Osama bin Laden. Some officials decide that "containing" bin Laden might be good enough. A former State Department official says, "What worries me is if, a month from now, bin Laden gets on al-Jazeera and thumbs his nose at us. It'd be a huge loss of prestige for the United States." (Seymour Hersh)
